The Album
by lily4856
Summary: Quinn stared at the album she hadn't dared to touch in over a year.  A Quinn, Beth, and Puck story.
1. Chapter 1

Quinn stared at the album she hadn't dared to touch in over a year. Opening it meant reliving the heartache and the pain that she had tried so desperately to escape. By having this album, she could remember but only when she wanted to. On her terms, when she felt the time was right.

Its pink cover mocked her. Pink is happiness, the color of Quinn's princess gowns when she was little. Pink was always her favorite color before Beth. Now, it was just a reminder of what could have been. She had always appeared so strong when it came to the adoption, making it seems as though she had never considered anything else. Inside, it killed her. No one ever saw her cry herself to sleep at night while Puck was downstairs playing video games. Tracing hearts on her stomach and telling her baby that she couldn't raise her. Laying there staring at the clock and hoping that time would stop so she would never have to face the reality.

Opening that album would mean she would have to look into the eyes of the little girl she had let go. As hard as she tried, she could never forget those eyes. Beth had Puck's eyes. Those dark, chocolate eyes. Everytime Quinn saw Puck, she saw Beth. She couldn't bare to look at Puck anymore, let alone have a conversation with him. Looking at him meant she had to face two memories, Beth and a love that she thought was real. She knew she wasn't strong enough to face both at the same time.

Since Beth was born, she hadn't looked at a picture. Shelby had sent pictures to her but she never opened the envelopes. Seeing pictures of Beth growing up meant that she would have to face the fact that Beth was real, not just a dream. Beth was alive and growing in a home nearby. The pictures would mean the Quinn was a mother, whether she wanted to believe it or not.

Her mother had made this album for her. "You're going to want to remember her. Trust me. I'm a mother", her mother had told her. What does her own mother know about being a mom? She knew how to abandon her children the moment her life wasn't living up to June Cleaver's standards. All the pictures and letters from Shelby had been put in the album. It was time to face it. Time to stop pretending it didn't happen and face the truth.

She was a mother. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't forget the one person she held close to her heart for nine months. Her daughter.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read this! I'll try and update when I can.**

Quinn knew that opening the album would cause her to have to face her demons, the ones that she had tried so hard to repress. She didn't know what her mother had put inside and since she was gone for the weekend, it was the perfect opportunity for Quinn to break down and not worry about blowing her collected self. She never talked about Beth with anyone and flinched at the merest mention of her existence. When Santana had fought her for telling Coach Sylvester about her "little surgery", Quinn was not looking to fight. That was until Santana brought Beth into the situation and then Hell broke loose. It was the first time that Quinn realized that Beth mattered to her and wasn't something that she left at the hospital. But still, the wounds of Beth and everything she brought were too much to bear at times.

It's why Quinn had let the pink album gather dust on the bookcase, only to be disturbed when her mother added a picture. If she never looked at those eyes, she could pretend it was all just a bad dream. She finally gathered enough courage to open it ever so slowly and peeked inside as a child would. She breathed a sign of relief at the first page: no pictures. In her mother's delicate cursive was "Beth", scrawled across the center. Little bears and ducks were scattered around just like a child had dropped them on the page after playing with them. Quinn's eyes were drawn to the top where there were two lambs, a mother and a baby. She couldn't help but feel sad at the sight of such a happy union between mother and baby when hers was so broken. She came to her mother's handwriting again at the bottom which read "_My Daughter, My Love, My Future_". Quinn chuckled at the words "my future". Last time she checked, Beth wasn't with her and Beth's future wouldn't be her future. "My mother is being all poetic and fails to see the truth, just like everything else in her life," she thought.

She turned the page and came face to face with eyes but they weren't those chocolate-brown eyes she had been dreading to see. They were her own eyes. One was her school picture of that year. Little did her mother know that the day the picture was taken, she had found out she was pregnant.

_Quinn left school that day with her head down and refusing to talk to anyone. She figured she had waited long enough to find out what was truly going on with her. She kept making excuses. "I'm stressed from school. That's why I'm late." "I have been exercising so much with the Cheerios. That's why I'm late." She had erased the whole night with Puck from her memory but now she had no choice but to remember. She drove to the local drug store and headed to the aisle with the pregnancy test. After the aisle was clear, she scurried down to make a selection. "What the hell am I suppose to get? Where is the one that says 'For use by teenage girls who are scarred out of their damn minds'? There is no way I'm asking for help from anyone in this store." She quickly grabbed a box with three tests (she had never done a test before and with her luck, she'd screw it up and have to go through this whole mortifying ordeal again). She headed for the cashier and of course, she had to be an old lady. Luckily, Quinn didn't recognize her. That didn't stop the cashier for giving her the look of "You are so going to Hell". "$14.69" was all the cashier said. Quinn gave her fifteen dollars and didn't bother waiting for the change. She couldn't bear her glare any longer. She pulled in the driveway and breathed a sigh of relief to see that her parents weren't home from work yet. She opened the door and headed up the stairs to take the test. Waiting the five minutes for the results were agonizing and she sat on the toilet tapping her fingers on the wall, staring at the test on the floor upside down. When five minutes came and went, she closed her eyes and turned it over. She peered at it and saw the plus sign. That stupid pink plus sign. The one thing she didn't want to see. She took the other two test to just make sure it wasn't a false positive. Ten minutes later, she was sitting on her bathroom floor crying with all three positive pregnancy test laying around her. It was at that moment when she learned to hate the color pink._

Looking through this album was going to be harder than Quinn had ever anticipated.

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	3. Author Note

Hey everyone!  
I have gotten a few follow alerts in the last few days so I want to give a short update. I still am going to work on this story but it may be awhile. I am a full time college student and I also work so time is a little in short supply right now. But no worries! I have a plan for this story and I am excited to finish it! Until then, comment and let me know what you want Quinn to find in the album or what you would like in the story! I'll try my best to work them into the story.


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